Martha Hoover owner of the Patachou restaurants, has started a foundation that will focus on feeding hungry children in Indianapolis. Charlie Nye / The Star. / Charlie Nye / The Star

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There’s something wonderful about the way many entrepreneurs look at social problems.

In so many cases, they look at the problems in the same way that they look at challenges facing their businesses: with an eye focused intently on finding a solution. A pragmatic, doable solution that avoids wasted time and produces results, that is. A solution whose impact can be felt quickly.

And this brings me to Martha Hoover, the local culinary legend and owner of the ever-growing Patachou empire. Starting with one Cafe Patachou restaurant in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood more than 20 years ago, Hoover’s business has grown and added many spinoffs over the years. It’s a great local gem, a place we locals love to take visitors to give them a sense of the Indianapolis flavor.

But when Hoover called me recently it wasn’t to talk about her restaurants or the food business. Rather, she wanted to discuss the devastating problems related to child poverty and homelessness in the city, particularly the many children who sadly don’t know where they will find their next meal. It’s a problem she said she’s become rather obsessed with since bumping into an acquaintance whose family had lost everything and ended up homeless.

That stunning conversation led to research and conversations with local experts who told her of the thousands of children who at any point in time are homeless or on the verge of being so, and whose hunger has an effect on everything from their health to their education. And all of that led, in her typical entrepreneurial style, to a plan to do something about the problem. A very pragmatic and impactful plan, of course.

“Our main goal,” she said, “is simply to feed some kids that aren’t going to get dinner that night.”

These thoughts tied into another concern Hoover has long had; her company’s philanthropic giving hasn’t produced the results she’d like to see. She has given roughly $50,000 a year to local charities, traditionally spreading the donations across a range of worthy organizations.

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“They are great organizations,” she said, “but we felt like we were shooting a BB gun — the giving was very scattered. No matter how much we gave we never saw the impact to the end user that we hoped to see.”

So Hoover has created The Patachou Foundation with the sole goal of feeding children in the city who face food insecurity. She has recruited a board of heavy hitters that includes former World Food Program executive director Jim Morris, as well as Sally Bindley of School on Wheels, David Harris of The Mind Trust and former Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who, Hoover said, has long been intrigued by “the intersection of private investment and public good.”

Hoover will dedicate her company’s usual charitable giving to the foundation and will send all of the profits from her soon-to-be-open restaurant, Public Greens in Broad Ripple, to the organization. Hoover hopes her workers and customers will join the effort. (To get things started, she will offer every customer who donates a name-brand jar of peanut butter a coupon for a free scoop of gelato.)

Hoover wants results and wants them quickly, so the foundation’s board will get to work this week on a plan to start a pilot program at one local school. When the school year begins next month, snacks and meals will be prepared by the staff at her company’s main kitchen on College Avenue and driven by volunteers to the school five days a week in a food truck Hoover recently purchased. The goal is to feed as many kids as possible, and to feed them the type of healthy and fresh foods that have built Patachou’s reputation.

“But our point isn’t to feed kids tomato artichoke soup,” Hoover said, of her restaurants’ standard fare. “It’s to provide a child-friendly meal. We want to make them food they are going to want to eat.”

That might mean peanut butter sandwiches, but on Patachou’s fresh bread with fruit on the side — the same excellent fruit served in Hoover’s restaurants. Or turkey sandwiches with a salad. Kids need protein, she said, and that will be the basis of the meals. Whatever the meal, it will send kids home with a full stomach and, perhaps, a bit of comfort.

Hoover’s idea is a real-world solution to a big problem. It’s not about theories, meetings or finger-pointing. It’s simply a pragmatic way to make things a little better in the city. And it’s a reminder that while we would all love a quick, comprehensive fix to complicated social problems , many of those problems require a roll-up-your-sleeves, one-kid-at-a-time solution.

“We want to keep things simple,” Hoover said.

That’s what the best entrepreneurs do. They keep things simple and they get things done. In this case, that philosophy will help a lot of kids.